Yesterday I met an acquaintance of a renowned (among adoptees) adoptee (whom I’ve never met and was surprised about the reference) for coffee, having no knowledge of this person and nothing to go on other than they are also an adoptee.  She was bright, open-minded, and positive.  Her story was so much different than mine, in all ways…

Over the past two years I have heard sooooo many adoptee stories.  Sooooo many.  Each unique.  Every one anecdotal.  I place great value on the anecdotal/the subjective.  Statistics label and categorize, are fallible, mostly born of poorly designed surveys, sample limited populations, and are used by liars and those with an agenda.  Personal anecdotes are real and nuanced.  And, as you witnessed previously, they are overwhelming for me and I can only handle so many at a time.

Part of the discovery process of adult adoptees is collecting and digesting stories, and that is what this adoptee was doing.  There are those who will collect and then reject the stories that don’t support what they want to believe, and those who will collect the stories to build a case for blame.  And now there are those, like this adoptee, who are open to all stories.  We all go through this story collection.  We seek to see a reflection of ourselves and our own stories somewhere. Unfortunately, the uniqueness of our stories makes that an unfilled desire for many.

Patterns are beginning to emerge as I listen to people’s stories.  And I realize, too, that these are only the stories of those rare few adoptees who will even recognize or talk about what happened to them.  The biggest factors seem to be age, isolation or not, sibling group birth order, the circumstances they were in and the circumstances they were sent to.  But all of the stories, all of them:  happy, sad, angry, appreciative, are all born of social injustice that we try to reconcile with our current fortunes.  It’s affected us all to a disturbing degree.

More and more stories are coming to light as  more and more of us come to a point where we (“angry” and “happy” adoptees) ask ourselves, “what is the source of this negative force in my life?”  Because all of us experienced great loss, exceptional loss.

Lately I’m liking what I hear.  I liked what I heard from the adoptee yesterday.  She with her ideal (in the adoption scenario) outcome where loss was replaced with something good, and mine where my loss was replaced with not much good to speak of.  We both of us came away from adoption happening to us with the thought, “I want to LIVE.”  We’re all of us stronger for the suffering.  And we all suffered.

It’s not fair the greater extent some of us suffered, but it’s important we all recognize everyone’s suffering.  That a happy adoptee acknowledged my reality, without dismissing it as an exception, acknowledged my right to be upset, and recognized that ALL of our stories are part of this Korean tragedy that shouldn’t be continuing today felt very validating.

It feels as if this canoe can right itself, if adoptees themselves are not fighting with one another, as more and more begin to recognize that we were never the problem, and adoption isn’t the best solution.

My class can now play a 3 note song.  And I have a big fat blister on my index finger. I guess that means I’m doing it right.

I received the playing 3 string guitar lesson in the mail, and it’s FREAKING BRILLIANT playing by ear.  If only I’d been taught Suzuki as a kid, maybe I wouldn’t be a musical retard right now…And I still can’t find hardwood to make a guitar neck, so I can’t play around.  So frustrating!

Here’s some modern day 가야금 병창 (playing gayageum while singing)

She’s playing a modern iteration of the instrument called Dahyeon Gayageum.  It’s got 15-25 strings and tuned diatonic so it can play with other modern instruments.  We’re learning on the traditional Sanjo 12 string.

Also —

I just found lots of cool music video’d all around Seoul on my beloved internet!

Now that I’ve broken through, there’s an easy trail to a giant pile of indie artists to search through!  This makes up for all the other social crap I have to deal with.  Now I want to move to Seoul and find these bands and hang out in cafes and…Jesus, why do I have to be 46?  And not enough hours in the day.

It’s almost 4 a.m. and I’ve been channel surfing for hours.  I really need to find some company.  I’ve still got another 2 years minimum before I can financially leave this place.  I hope I don’t go insane before then.

Adoptees:  I know you want to come back and find your family and find your roots and learn about Korean culture.  But take my advice:

• Don’t work at a public school where you’ll be THE ONLY FOREIGNER
• Don’t work in the country where you’ll be THE ONLY FOREIGNER who isn’t white or black
• Don’t work in the country where there are no Korean lessons
• Don’t come alone
• Don’t wait until you’re 45
• Do act, look, and dress yourself because that’s the only thing that’s sustainable and because it’s our right as an exiled foreigner.
• Do learn Korean ahead of time

There are, actually, more opportunities to learn about Korean culture in America than here in Korea.  Because the cultural things offered are more accepting than thecultural things offered here, which are only to promote tourism, very superficial, and expensive.

Somewhere, on another continent in another country where I can speak the language, in a couple years, there is someone who will want to keep me company.

O.k. Maybe now I can sleep.

Here’s some highlights from Jeff Yang’s overview of PBS’s POV (Point of View) series on adoption (airing this month and available on their website as the series progresses), Born across borders, as seen in SFgate.com’s on-line magazine.

On assimilation:

“What else can they do?” says Wang-Breal (Chinese adoptee and film maker). “She’s surrounded by white people in a very white town. She needs to make friends, she needs to do well in tests, she needs to read, she needs people to understand her. I grew up Asian in a small white town myself — I can relate. At the end of the day, it’s a matter of survival.”

On, “you would have ended up a prostitute”

“Making this film was fascinating,” she (Korean adoptee and film maker Deanne Borshay Liem) says (of searching for the other girl whose name and whose adoptive life she lived when their identities were deliberately swapped) “I got to meet all of these women who were the same age as me, but who’d followed different paths through life. And it really gave me a window as to how I could have ended up. One of the Cha Jung Hees I found runs a restaurant bar. Another is a farmer — she and her husband grow those Korean apple-pears, they have cattle, they raise honeybees. A third has had a variety of jobs; she was working as a wallpaper hanger when I met her. But they all were surviving — they all had kids in college!”

The experience of the search underscored two things for her: The first was that she could have survived, even thrived, had she stayed in Korea. (“Adoptees are always told that if they’d stayed in Korea they’d have ‘ended up as prostitutes,'” she says. “Well, that’s clearly not a given.”)

And on Adoption as a business:

“One adoptee I talked with told me that his parents showed him the picture that led them to pick him,” says Liem. “In the photo, he was crying and looked dirty. But he remembers that on the day he had that picture taken he was actually happy, and the photographer snapped a picture of him smiling. Then they put dirt on his face and forced him to change into raggy clothes, yelled at him, made him cry, and took a second picture. That’s the one his parents originally received. After his parents informed the orphanage they wanted to adopt him, they received the happy picture with a note saying ‘Look, this is how he feels now!'”

On motivation:

In a scene near the end of “Wo Ai Ni Mommy,” Jeff Sadowsky explains that Faith had recently asked him, “Why would you want a daughter from China?” His explanation: “Well, I’ve always been into things from China. I guess, from the martial arts — I’ve always been — I love China.” Donna quickly steps in to course-correct: “I told her, ‘I wanted a daughter, and you needed a family. We didn’t see you as being Chinese, we saw you as a beautiful girl who wanted a family.'”

Near the end he talks to a Korean adoptee friend who lives in Manhattan and found her birthmother living in Queens.  It got me to thinking, maybe I should also send my story out to all of American, Australian & Canadian (the 3 top destinations for Korean Emigration) Korean communities.  I mean, there I was living in Seattle for the past 24 years and the possible Kim Sook Ja has lived her whole adoptee life in Washington State, two hours drive away.

This adoption thing is SO BIZARRE and SURREAL at times, you can’t imagine how weird it is…

I mean, I’m living IN KOREA – how weird is that?  And now back to the handwriting analysis and cross-referencing of names with the U.S. Census for an adoptee looking for her father with only an illegible signature to go by,  and copy-editing my friend’s memoirs of her cherished life before adoption split up her family.

from the first hour of my evening conversation class last week…

Power Pizza (they think this is a very hilarious name)

1. My dream is beatboxer
2. My hobby is sing
3. I like English (very)
4. I’m seventeen years old
5. I love you   :-P   k.k.k.  (joke)

Joyful Janny

1. Old is 17
2. My nickname is pig (she has zero problem with this nickname)
3. My hobby is reading
4. I favorite food is Japchae
5. I like cooking

Mustard Mychee

1. I’m very hot!!! (he’s so NOT hot!)
2. I like chickin
3. I like hamberger
4. I like store
5. I like cats!!!!!

Jolly Jessica

1. I’m beautiful girl
2. I like Choi Ho Sin
3. My hobby is listen to music
4. My boyfriend is handsome
5. I like shinee  (I read this as bling, but actually it’s SHINee, a singer)

I actually have 20 students, 2 groups of 1o.  Reports are they’ve had a blast.  The English teachers are very happy.

Tonight is my 4th class with them.   Last class I gave the first class ethical questions.  I was aghast to find out ALL of the students would keep money they saw someone drop!  The second class I made a suggestion box and had the kids fill out anonymous cards with complaints/suggestions on how to improve the school.  I found out we have no school nurse and no permanent art teacher!  The kids want an assembly hall and a wider cafeteria, so they don’t have to eat in 3 shifts.  Hmm!  Sounds pretty reasonable to me!  And of course, there’s the daily lack of toilet paper and soap that drives everyone insane…

Every other class we just play games, so tonight is pictionary.  Must make my own cards.  I ordered a real game, but it won’t arrive for who-knows-how-long.

It’s really weird to leave school at 9 pm, at the same time as the students…

Yayy!  I discovered a new channel a few weeks ago and didn’t write it down.  In my procrastination and insomnia, I finally found it again.  It’s called INDIEFILM and it’s on channel 122 if you  have Cable & More as your t.v. service provider!